Officers Routinely Cleared of Brutality, Cases Show

Hundreds of new cases of citizen complaints released Tuesday by the Los Angeles Police Department appear to reinforce findings by the Christopher Commission that officers are routinely cleared of allegations of police brutality.

The new documents also show that while the vast majority of citizen complaints are ultimately rejected, police officers often are sharply punished when brought up on minor administrative infractions such as littering, driving their personal cars without insurance or striking up personal relationships while on duty.

The material also highlights several unusual cases resulting in suspensions.

Two officers were disciplined for inadvertently locking a citizen in an interview room at the Hollywood police station and leaving him there all weekend. An administrative Board of Rights panel found another officer guilty of possessing and spending money belonging to the Drug Awareness Resistance Education program after he was reimbursed for a trip to Europe on business for the anti-drug project.

Copies of the complaints, contained in hundreds of synopses of Internal Affairs Division investigations, were obtained Tuesday by The Times from the city attorney’s office, after the newspaper filed a request for the material under the California Public Records Act.

The Christopher Commission, an independent panel created to review the Police Department after the March 3 beating of Rodney G. King, concluded this summer that a significant number of officers have over the years been named in a high proportion of citizen assault and excessive force complaints.

The panel also determined that police administrators at Parker Center often condoned aggressive behavior or failed to discipline errant officers.

The reports released Tuesday cover complaint summaries that were submitted to the Police Commission during the second half of 1990.

Of 180 incidents where citizens alleged that officers used excessive force, only 12 of the cases resulted in a finding where the allegations were sustained and the citizen was found to be telling the truth. The remaining 168 cases resulted in findings where the officers were exonerated, or the allegations from citizens were either “unfounded” or “not sustained.”

However, Internal Affairs investigators said the large number of cases where officers were not disciplined was justified for a variety of reasons. They cited such factors as a lack of independent witnesses, the level of force was reasonable, and the officers’ denials that brutality occurred.

Some examples:

* A 29-year-old woman alleged that an officer in the Rampart Patrol Division “unnecessarily pulled her hair, kicked her legs and squeezed her lower jaw” during a drug investigation last October. She complained that a second officer “pulled open her bikini top while looking for drugs.”

The department classified her complaint as “not sustained,” citing a lack of witnesses and the officers’ denials.

* An Associated Press reporter complained that he was “hit by a Los Angeles police officer with a nightstick” while covering a May Day demonstration in the Pico-Union district. The reporter said that although he was wearing press credentials and standing with spectators, an officer ordered him to “move it, move it” and then repeatedly struck him “in the back, the ribs and back of the right arm.”

The department, however, said the reporter’s allegations were not sustained because of a “lack of independent witnesses and the lack of physical evidence.”

* A 19-year-old black man alleged that a white officer struck him with a flashlight and “caused a police dog to bite” him while he was being arrested for robbery.

However, the department concluded: “None of the allegations were resolved due to the lack of witnesses and the officer’s denials. The allegations were thus classified as not sustained.”

The 12 cases where officers were found to be engaged in misconduct resulted in a wide range of discipline.

Two officers in the Southeast Patrol Division received suspensions of 15 days and 10 days after the department sustained a complaint from a man arrested on traffic warrants. He said the officers “struck and choked” him, and Internal Affairs investigators later determined the officers never filed a “use of force” report detailing the incident.

Another sustained case involved an officer who struck a man after he was arrested and handcuffed to a bench at the West Valley police station. The officer, with one prior sustained complaint of a similar nature, was suspended for 22 days.